About Grass Foundation
The Grass Foundation is narrowly focused on supporting marine and biological research training, concentrating its entire giving on funding fellowship and program costs for the Marine Biological Laboratory. Its grants fund hands-on research training and fellowships that develop early-career scientists rather than broad philanthropic mandates. The foundation appears to act as a dedicated institutional backer of a single scientific training program.
Focus Areas
Marine Biological Laboratory fellowship program fundingEarly-career scientist research training in marine and biological sciencesProgram support for laboratory-based summer research courses
Who They Fund
early-career neuroscience researchers (graduate students, postdocs)Native American undergraduate/graduate internsgraduate students and postdoctoral researchers from developing countriesneuroscience faculty (program/fellowship coordinators and faculty support)
Giving Approach
About Grass Foundation
The Grass Foundation’s giving is built around the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole: three of the largest recent grants went to the lab for the Grass Fellowship Program and related course support, including $725,542 in 2023, $710,521 in 2024, and $194,863 in 2025. That pattern shows a funder that backs a specific scientific training pipeline rather than a broad mix of causes. The foundation’s grants support early-career neuroscientists and related researchers through summer fellowships, course funding, and program costs tied to hands-on laboratory training. The recurring support to Marine Biological Laboratory is complemented by smaller awards tied to research education and recognition. The foundation also funded the Grass Fellowship Coordinator Support at the Marine Biological Laboratory, and it has supported named neuroscience awards and lectureships connected to meetings and training programs. Across the recent grant list, individual awards also appear for fellows and rising-star recipients, reinforcing a model that combines institutional support with direct support for trainees and early-career scientists. The available data points to a foundation whose grantmaking is highly programmatic and centered on building scientific capacity in neuroscience and biological research.
What Grass Foundation Funds
A central theme in The Grass Foundation’s grantmaking is neuroscience training. In 2025, it gave $50,000 to the Society for Neuroscience for a year-long, multi-module professional development series for early-career neuroscience researchers on non-laboratory skills. It also supported the Society for Neuroscience with $1,500 for the Latin American Training Program in 2022. The foundation also supports diversity and access in the field. It gave $30,000 in 2025 to the Foundation for the National Institute of Health Inc for participation of Native American students in the NINDS Summer Internship Program. International training appears in a smaller set of grants. In 2023, it gave $3,000 to the International Society for Neuroethology to help graduate students and postdoctoral researchers from developing countries attend the ICN 2022 Scientific Program. It also gave $1,500 to the Henry M Jackson Foundation for the 14th Teaching Tools Workshop in Africa.
How Grass Foundation Gives
Typical grants are small relative to the foundation’s larger program awards: the p25 size is $500, the median is $1,000, and the p75 is $10,000. At the same time, the recent record includes much larger institutional grants in the hundreds of thousands for the Marine Biological Laboratory. The pattern mixes direct awards with operating and program support. Some grantees recur across multiple years, especially the Marine Biological Laboratory and the Society for Neuroscience, which suggests ongoing relationships rather than one-off gifts. The foundation funds individuals as well as organizations, and the recent list includes named awards to individual scientists. The data also shows unsolicited applications are accepted for several programs, including the Grass Fellowship and the Henry Grass Rising Stars in Neuroscience Award.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$487K
Total Assets
$25.8M
Total Revenue
$1.1M
Total Expenses
$803K
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $500 and $10K, with a median of $1K.
25th Percentile
$500
Median
$1K
75th Percentile
$10K
Geographic Reach
National19 states funded
About 6% of grants go to recipients in MA.
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
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